With some businesses and organizations in dire financial situations during the coronavirus pandemic, commissioners from several smaller Division I conferences have given a separate petition to the NCAA, asking for leniency if they need to cut a spot.
Meanwhile, a petition has been started to the NCAA to keep athletic programs alive.
Some sports have been cut from NCAA programs during this time, and more could lead to NCAA and Title IX violations. The University of Cincinnati cut its men’s soccer program this week, while Old Dominion cut its wrestling program a few weeks ago. No swimming programs have been altered yet.
In a joint letter to NCAA President Mark Emmert, commissions from the American Athletic Conference, Mountain West Conference, Mid-American Conference, Sun Belt Conference and Conference USA asked for temporary relief for up to four years calling this the “direst financial crisis for higher education since at least the Great Depression,” according to the New York Times.
“We felt that there were some common-sense things we would take up with the NCAA,” Mike Aresco, the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, told the New York Times, “We are looking at worst-case scenarios.”
Among their requests was easing the requirement that they sponsor a minimum of 16 sports to be in the Football Bowl Subdivision. They also asked to waive the football attendance requirement, which requires colleges to average at least 15,000 people at all home football games, and to change scheduling requirements.
Meanwhile, an online petition on change.org was started by private citizen William Roberts of Arnold, Maryland, asking the NCAA not to cut any athletic programs.
The petition in part reads:
We call upon the NCAA and President Mark Emmert to uphold the minimum number of sports required to maintain NCAA Division I status. Though we fully realize the challenge of funding a collegiate athletic department, the current pandemic and subsequent anticipated financial shortfalls should not be used as a means to reduce sports sponsorship requirements. No NCAA sport program should be cut!
The NCAA Division I Manual does not delineate one sport over another and states, quite clearly, that an athletics program as a whole is to be a vital part of the educational system. Any reduction in sport offerings runs counter to the Constitution of the NCAA. Specifically, in Principles for Conduct of Intercollegiate Athletics, principle 2.10 states that “it’s members shall promote opportunity from equity in competition to assure that individual student-athletes and institutions will not be prevented unfairly from achieving the benefits inherent in participation in intercollegiate athletics.”
In the past decade, NCAA member programs have experienced unprecedented financial growth in staffing, salaries, building, and revenue. Most of all, this growth has created opportunities – including opportunities for 141,483 Division I students in Olympic Sports. Eliminating these opportunities runs counter to the NCAA’s principles. Any effort to reduce sports sponsorship requirements will fall exclusively on the backs of the very athletes who epitomize the notion of a student-athlete. No NCAA sport program should be cut!
Read the full petition here.
According to the Times report, 80 percent of the NCAA’s $1.1 billion in revenue last year came from TV rights and marketing from the NCAA basketball tournaments. The coronavirus outbreak canceled those tournaments this season. A portion of the money made during the tournament is distributed to conferences, and the loss of that income may be especially jarring to mid-major conferences, most of which do not have TV contracts to rely on.
The situation will most certainly cause more changes and possible cuts, but it is also an ongoing pandemic, and the full impact will not be known for some time.
Not sure you can call Mr Roberts a private citizen. He could be referred to as a Mens D1 swim coach in the state of Maryland.